Kaumaha
by Mononoke-hime x sukai kurora
Summary: Dr. Max Bergman's life was not well known until 2.20. Now with the Trash Man dead, he visits his biological mother's grave.


_Kaumaha_

Dr. Max Bergam was in the cememtary. Ironically, he had never been in a cemetary before even though he was a medical examiner. He had almost come to this place before, when he first found out that his mother had been murdered by the Trash Man. He had been a medical student at that time, and had been more focused on meeting the man who murdered his mother than visiting her grave. Then he had found out that the Trash Man was still out there, waiting for his next victim. This was the first time he had seen her grave before. It was carved out of the regular material that graves were made out of, and surprisingly, well tended to. There were no weeds maskeruing his mother's name.

Max slowly bent down toward his mother's grave. In his left hand he carreid a bauquet of flowers; cherry blossoms. Her obituary from years long past was etched in his mind. Japanese cherry blossoms were her favorite flowers. Max set them on the grave, and wondered if his biological mother was watching him now. He traced her name with one of his fingers, and then lingered on the dates of her birth and death. The victim that Max had recently autopsied was the same age as his biological mother when she died. They were both twenty-three years old. Max sometimes wondered why his mother had abandoned him there at the church. He knew later in life that the church was a safe haven for abandoned children, but what had made her pick that place? Was she a Christian – Max certainly was not – , or was the church simply a safe haven for her as she hoped it would be for her newborn son?

Max had been adopted at four months by Dr. Alan Bergman and his wife, Susan. It was his adoptive father who introduced him to medicine. They both had a passion about the delicate chemistry about the body, and his adoptive father was the person who had encouraged him to persue a career in the medical field. As a teenager, it had been Alan who had helped Max find out who he was – not many couples adopted Asian children, and Max knew that. He was bullied at school quite frequently for his unusaul uprbringing, and that was not the only reason either. _"Even though we are not related, we'll always be flesh and blood, Max." _His adoptive father had told him this many times before, as a child and then as an adolescent. Susan had also told him something similar, and she had been a second mother to him. Max couldn't explain to his adoptive parents how he felt. He had no link to his biological mother, and had no memory of her, and yet felt a sense of connection that he couldn't explain.

Max didn't try to understan why his biological mother had abandoned him. She had her reasons. It pained him to realize that she had actually wanted him back years later. That was what the Trash Man said. _"Did you know that she came back? Years after she abandoned you. Wanted to know what happened to you. Said you had a life together. She wanted to _find_ you, Max!" _Somehow Max found that he believed the Trash Man. His biological mother, Michiko Takishito, had cared for him.

"_They all say that. They want to get on with their lives, they want to pretend it never happened, throw us away to so they get on with their lives."_

"_You didn't know her!"_

Max relized then that he didn't know his biological mother either. He didn't know Michiko Takishito. He didn't know why she had abandoned him. Max had told himself that his biological mother was afriad to give him up, and she had no choice. Perhaps that wasn't the truth though. Perhaps she _had_ abandoned him when he was only two days old on a cold winter's night in 1986. Max's adoptive parents wouldn't reveal the truth about his mother until he had demanded the truth from them. Then he found out that she was dead, and had been dead for the twenty years of his life. But then why come back for him years later? Max couldn't understand. Max was now older, but the pain from his mother's death was still there. It felt as if there was a hole in his heart, and it was even deep now from his encounter with the man who killed his biological mother.

"He tried to kill me," Max whispered. He knew that he was talking to a barren grave, but he felt that his mother was watching him. "He tried to finish me off like he did with you. The Trash Man tried to explain to me his reasons for killing you and all the other woman. I didn't believe him. I _couldn't_ believe him." Max swallowed hard. "I know you had your reasons for leaving me in that church. Perhaps if you and I were together, I would have felt more hatred towards him. I was the one that ended up killing him though. I can still hear his dying breath, and see his blood on the glass. I can still feel the glass in my hand as I pushed it in his left lower qaudrant." Max took a deep breath. He was astonished that he had killed a man, even a man as mentally ill as the Trash Man. He didn't feel proud of it. "I don't feel proud of it," he said. The medical examiner slowly stood up on his feet again. He saw the cheery blossoms on his mother's grave, and felt…a sense of relief. Max couldn't help himself; he started to recite his favorite poem.

"Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there; I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond glints on snow,

I am the sun on ripened grain,

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight.

I am the soft star-shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there; I did not die."

Max slowly walked away from the grave, and then ligered. He could still see the cherry blossoms.

"_Sayonrara, Okasan."_


End file.
